was always that it was biased. They seemed to think that having a
strong opinion and expressing it was somehow unseemly in a newspaper.
An aside, but related to the course. When I inherited it, it was
called Straight Thinking and Argument . Under pressure from the people
in Gender Studies, the philosophy department changed the name of the
course. It seems that 'straight' thinking was too controversial for
them...why limit our students to 'straight' thinking' when there are so
many other kinds?
Ursula,
(depends on whether you're talking about a Canadian or a U.S. nickel...)
David Ritchie wrote:
One of the things I wanted to discover when I ran a seminar on the
history of the newspaper, is where this idea of "balance" came from.
It's not there at all in the beginning of newspapers, or even in the
middle. I think it's a rather strange idea, one which I went along
with when I worked for a newspaper, but the editor was constantly
reminding me how the rules go. My version of things was no doubt
derived from E.H. Carr--there are no "balanced" or "objective"
historians; you read the historian and then you are in a position to
read the history. The journalist selects evidence, why pretend
otherwise? There are rules of interpretation, but this business of
"balance" is kind of strange.
David Ritchie,
wondering whether "five cents worth" is a credit or a debit in
Portland, Oregon
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